The DOJ vs. Sheriff Johnson

Published: Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 07:41 PM.

With the recent flurry of news stories, now is a good time to consider how likely it is that Alamance County will win its defense of Sheriff Terry Johnson against the U.S. Department of Justice.

County officials appear to be convinced that they will prevail. It appears that the confidence is based on three assumptions. The first is that the sheriff never did anything wrong. The second is that what the sheriff and his deputies say is gospel, while any witnesses to the contrary must be liars. Third is that it follows that the DOJ could only have had a political motive, most likely an attempt to interfere in the sheriff’s 2010 re-election.

Never did anything wrong

Because the public has never been given a definition of what legal wrongs apply in a case like this, there has been little discussion of anything except “profiling”. Whether one improper stop is an exception, or a pattern is hard to prove without data on all deputy activity. That much data has not been collected and saved. Still, we do know that the sheriff has admitted to filing invalid traffic stop reports with the state in the past. There may be other offenses that apply, for example: “pretexting.” That would be something like setting up a road-block supposedly to check driver licenses, while really hoping to find undocumented immigrants.

With the recent flurry of news stories, now is a good time to consider how likely it is that Alamance County will win its defense of Sheriff Terry Johnson against the U.S. Department of Justice.

County officials appear to be convinced that they will prevail. It appears that the confidence is based on three assumptions. The first is that the sheriff never did anything wrong. The second is that what the sheriff and his deputies say is gospel, while any witnesses to the contrary must be liars. Third is that it follows that the DOJ could only have had a political motive, most likely an attempt to interfere in the sheriff’s 2010 re-election.

Never did anything wrong

Because the public has never been given a definition of what legal wrongs apply in a case like this, there has been little discussion of anything except “profiling”. Whether one improper stop is an exception, or a pattern is hard to prove without data on all deputy activity. That much data has not been collected and saved. Still, we do know that the sheriff has admitted to filing invalid traffic stop reports with the state in the past. There may be other offenses that apply, for example: “pretexting.” That would be something like setting up a road-block supposedly to check driver licenses, while really hoping to find undocumented immigrants.

Credibility

Now, for the first time, Sheriff’s Office spokesman Randy Jones is quoted in the Sept. 24 Times-News saying “Johnson has never told his employees not to speak . . . to DOJ without a lawyer present, but if they decided to speak with the DOJ without an attorney present, it was their choice.” That last part is new, clearly an example of a statement from the Sheriff’s Office that rewrites history and is not credible.

The facts are that on July 26, 2010, the county attorney sent a letter, available on the internet, to Sheriff Johnson in which he asked, “. . . please advise all Sheriff Department personnel that if contacted by the DOJ attorneys they should state that all communications must be made in the presence of and by agreement with the County Attorney.” Later, in a letter of Sept. 26, 2012, the sheriff’s attorney said, “The Sheriff’s position . . . was and continues to be that the only objection the Sheriff had was with your attorneys interrogating current deputies without benefit of counsel.” So, the county’s position was, “no interviews without any attorneys.” Indeed, they fought the DOJ in court over this rule.

Political motivation

There has never been any evidence that the DOJ had an interest in the sheriff’s re-election. It is the department’s job to investigate cases of unconstitutional policing. With more such cases than they have resources, the DOJ selects the most serious and the most provable. In nearly all cases, the DOJ has succeeded in getting a settlement, or an injunction, requiring a change of procedure at the relevant police department. It stretches belief that with all the sheriffs in the United States, the DOJ just happened to pick our sheriff’s re-election to interfere with.

There is another reason to doubt that Alamance County will prevail: the quality of the arguments we are seeing. Regarding the county attorney’s request to UNC-Chapel Hill for e-mails and hard drives, back on Sept. 3, 2010, the Times-News reported “. . . Clyde Albright recently sought e-mail correspondence . . . . regarding Gill, Roselle, and UNC student Savannah Helvey, Roselle’s daughter.” According to the Times-News of Oct. 12, he now describes his targets as “Professor Gill and her assistant” although Ms. Helvey was a student and did not report to Gill. He then says, “I do not know if Professor Gill or her assistant are related to the public critic” (referring to Prof. Roselle). Helvey’s parentage was never a secret. Many at Elon University could have told an inquirer that Professor Roselle goes by her maiden name. This mother-daughter relationship was so easy to verify, that Albright’s claim of ignorance can only be true if he indeed did not want to know it. Will such poorly researched arguments impress the court?

The chances of winning are not high. Alamance County should be working on a Plan B. Will it be spending more money to appeal a loss, or changing procedures to conform to the DOJ’s view of the constitution.

Ben Ansbacher is an immigration rights advocate who lives in Burlington.